Once Upon a Forbidden Desire, page 3
“You,” I said flatly.
“Me,” he agreed, holding out his hand. The sheer arrogance!
He’s a king! I reminded myself. Of course he’s arrogant! You’re a human in the middle of a forbidden fae court! Don’t do anything foolish! Or at least not more foolish than you have already.
I took his hand.
His fingers curled around mine, the point of contact shivering through me as he led me out to the dance floor. Beyond him, I felt the eyes of the court. I caught sight of Lord and Lady Bloodthorn and Acantha, their eyes narrow and lips drawn tight. Tawhiri’s arms were firm, and he moved with elegant, light-footed grace. If not for, well, everything, I’d have enjoyed dancing with him thoroughly. As it was, my emotions seesawed between outrage, panic, and curiosity.
“My intimates call me Tawhiri,” he said.
“Good for them, Your Majesty,” I said before I could stop myself. I hastily pressed my lips tight.
His mouth curved. “This morning you pulled me from a trap, and tonight you wear my feathers. That is fairly intimate.” His dark eyes searched mine, as if he couldn’t puzzle me out. I wondered what he looked like under the mask. Undoubtedly beautiful.
I said nothing. It seemed safest.
“Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure whether you would, even with two invitations,” he said into my fraught silence.
“Why did you want me to come? You don’t even know me. And I’m human.”
He looked surprised and a little ruffled, as if he were the only one allowed to ask awkward questions.
“I am currently obliged to seek a bride,” he said in a tight, clipped voice. “You yourself said you were a daughter of Bloodthorn. If I must choose from amongst the scions of the twelve houses, then by Sister Night, I will have the full breadth of them here to choose from.”
It shouldn’t have annoyed me that he’d invited me only out of perversity—why else would he, after all?—but it nonetheless did.
“I came for the food, just so you know,” I said.
It surprised a laugh from him. He had a good laugh, warm and resonant as apple cider.
“Why are you called Cinders?”
We spun in silence as I debated how to answer. He’d bothered to find out my use-name? “My mother was a scullery maid, apparently. It’s not my actual name.”
“Apparently?”
“I never met her.”
Tawhiri blinked dark eyes. “What is your true name, then?”
It was a rude question for a fae. I remembered that he was a king, which I’d been in danger of forgetting for a moment there, with the laugh and the warm hands and the intensity of his gaze.
“I don’t know. Lord Bloodthorn didn’t bother to ask when he took me.” It came out more bitter than I’d intended.
His eyes bore into mine, and I felt uncomfortably seen. Tawhiri canted his head. “Why did he take you, if he did not mean to treasure you?”
I sucked in a breath. It’s not pleasant to have a stranger voice your deepest insecurity after less than a minute of conversation. “What were you planning to do if I didn’t rescue you this morning?”
He said nothing, and realization hit me, followed swiftly by shame. “Oh. You didn’t need rescuing, did you?” Of course he hadn’t truly been caught in our bloodthorn tree. He was a king. He probably had enough magic to blow the entire manor to smithereens. He hadn’t needed saving, and I’d driven myself half-mad with pain this morning for nothing but his entertainment. I was just a toy to him, a human puzzle that had briefly intrigued him with its novelty. He’d invited me to his ball to see if I’d dance to his tune, and I had. “All right, you’ve done your bit, dazzled the stupid mortal girl, thumbed your nose at your court. Go dance with your real bride prospects and leave me alone.”
I wrenched myself out of his arms, leaving him standing in the middle of the dance floor with wide eyes and his arms still half raised. Gasps rippled out from the assembled watchers. I held my head high and glared at them all, these beautiful and terrible sidhe, and relished their attention. I might never be good enough for them, but right now, I was the one with the power to reject a king in his own palace.
Then I left.
Afterwards, I regretted losing my temper. Why had I given up the chance at a whole evening’s dancing? Couldn’t I have just swallowed my tongue, flattered Tawhiri’s ego with gratitude for being invited at all? But his words had poked at my most tender spot. He’d made me feel seen, and then it had turned out to be a lie, and that was worse somehow than staying invisible the whole time.
My attic felt small and sad and alone. I hid the beautiful dress and mask under my bed and told myself I’d be glad when things were back to normal tomorrow.
DAWN FOUND ME back at the meadow, though with the memory of yesterday’s pain fresh, I stayed inside the bounds to watch the sun rise. I turned at the sound of tūī wings and narrowed my eyes when the bird landed on the stump next to me.
I said nothing as it transformed into a man—a fae. It was the first time I’d seen his whole face, and he was as sickeningly beautiful as I’d suspected. I remembered how his body had felt against mine and then told myself I didn’t remember any such thing.
We stared at each other. I crossed my arms.
“Can we try this again?” he said after a moment. “I handled things badly last night.”
I continued to cross my arms, with more emphasis. My silence flustered him. I supposed kings weren’t used to having to explain themselves.
“I didn’t invite you last night to mock you,” he said hastily. “I owe you a debt worth more than a feather and a song. I offered you your freedom in exchange for saving my life.”
“I didn’t actually save your life, though, did I? You could have magicked your way out. You don’t owe me anything.”
“You didn’t know that at the time, and yet you saved me at the cost of your own pain. I will stand the debt. Will you tell me how you came to be part of House Bloodthorn?”
“You’ve been demanding a lot of personal information. That’s not how normal conversation works, you know.”
His feathers rustled as he considered this. “Fair. You may ask me something personal as well, then, and I will answer as best I can.”
I laughed. “Is everything in your life a series of carefully measured exchanges?”
“A great deal of it.” He smiled. The smile transformed him, revealing a glimpse of a real person in the heart of the arrogant fae king. “I will be generous and not count that as your question. Ask.” A fine thread of tension gathered in his body.
What should I ask him? The twelve houses would want to know who he was going to pick—that would be a valuable piece of information to have, but I couldn’t see how I’d use it. Besides, everyone would find that out anyway in another two days.
“What would you choose to do, if you weren’t a king?” I asked.
The line of tension eased, his wings flexing in and out. He looked taken aback. “I have never thought about it before; I’ve always been destined for the throne.” He looked down at his hands. “I like making things,” he said, as if he were confessing a state secret. “Perhaps I would be a woodworker, though I suspect I would be a rather poor one.”
“Most people don’t start off being brilliant at things. I’d expect you’d get better with practice.”
The intensity of his regard made me suck in a breath. He had long, inky-dark eyelashes, and in the bright morning I could see that his irises were deep brown rather than true black. The world slowed, the only sound the cicadas and the occasional calls of birds. I had that peculiar feeling of being seen again, as if my soul lay bare beneath his gaze.
“I will comfort myself with that thought in my hypothetical carpentry career,” he said, and for a moment I wondered what on earth he was talking about, I’d become so distracted. “What would you do, if you were free to choose?”
I was tempted to point out this wasn’t the information he’d bargained for but decided to be generous, since he was making an effort at conversation. “Find some sort of job, I suppose. Try to make a living. I’d enjoy having my own house and managing it, if I could afford to have one. Go out in public as myself—” I cut myself off before I revealed too much. “A very boring answer.”
“A very practical answer. Would you return to the mortal world, then, if you could?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know if there would be any more place for me there than here.” I looked beyond the meadow, to the wildness of the Golden Wood, where ponga ferns and young tarata saplings grew beneath ancient linden trees. “I’d miss the wood. And my stepsisters. Have you ever been to Mortal?”
He looked at his hands. “Once, as a boy. My father took me to see one of the great festivals, and we cast illusions so that we might pass as humans. It was … interesting. I haven’t had time to return since. Will you tell me how you came to Faerie?”
I sighed, sank down onto the stump, and told him the story.
I WAS SUPPOSED to be royalty.
Lord Bloodthorn thought that’s what he’d bargained for when he agreed to aid my human father in a bloody succession war in the mortal world. Firstborns are a traditional price for fae bargains.
Lord Bloodthorn helped make my father a king and in exchange expected control of the infant prince, the royal heir. I think Lord Bloodthorn had some notion of one day marrying my stepsisters into royalty or at least holding significant sway over a human nation. Even humans can be acceptable if they’re titled enough, I suppose.
This, however, was where I came in. I was born out of wedlock a month before the young prince, to one of the castle’s scullery maids. My father knew about it—he’d organized to have my mother packed off and wed to a farmer, far from the capital, the moment he learnt of her pregnancy. They tell tales of his cleverness in his kingdom, how he outsmarted a fae, won a throne, and saved his heir.
If the stories mention me at all, it’s generally assumed I got a good bargain too. After all, surely a servant’s bastard ought to be grateful to be adopted by a lord, even a fae one?
TAWHIRI GAVE ME a sidelong glance after I’d finished. “How do you know what tales they tell, if you’ve never been back?”
“Lord Bloodthorn.”
“He told you they tell tales about him being outsmarted?”
“No, but he wouldn’t be so sore about it if they didn’t. I filled in the blanks from what he did say: my real father didn’t want me, I ought to be endlessly grateful to House Bloodthorn, and so on and so forth.”
“Your real father cared enough to make Lord Bloodthorn promise to adopt you into his household and raise you as his own. That’s not traditionally part of a firstborn bargain,” Tawhiri said. He saw my expression. “But that doesn’t make up for what he did. I am sorry.”
My throat felt oddly thick. No one had ever said that to me before. I looked at my feet and told myself I wasn’t going to cry.
“Marry me.”
My head came up. “What?”
He colored, as if he’d shocked himself nearly as much as me. “I, ah, meant to lead into that rather more elegantly.”
I gaped at him but managed to croak: “You don’t even know me.”
“I know that you are bold, intelligent, and kind.” His voice, which had started unsteadily, grew more confident as he spoke, until he was listing off reasons like you’d categorize a horse’s assets. His gaze dropped briefly to my lips, and for a moment blood pounded in my ears, but then he looked away and I realized of course desire wouldn’t feature on his list. Why would it, when I was ordinary and human, and he had fae beauties of every house vying for his attention? Why did I even care?
He continued: “I know that you do not lust after the throne for power’s sake. That you would rescue a helpless creature if it was in your power to do so, even at some cost to yourself. That puts you ahead of all the other candidates. I have to marry someone, and I have very little time to make that choice. Good marriages have been built on less.”
I stared at him. He seemed perfectly serious. “You want to tweak everyone’s noses for forcing you into this,” I said slowly. It was the only plausible reason I could think of, and never mind his pretty words.
“Ah … yes,” he admitted. “But it will also avoid giving power over to any of the twelve houses over another, which is a greatly desirable outcome. We exist peaceably because we are in balance. If I were to choose your sister Acantha, or the Sweetgrass heir, or any of the other favorites …”
“Be still, my beating heart. And what do I get out of this?” I took refuge in flippancy. It was obvious what I got out of this.
“I am a king,” he said stiffly. “You would be queen of the Golden Wood, with the associated luxuries and powers. But also, if you are bound to me, it will unbind you from this manor. You will be free of your dawn-curse. Not freedom in its entirety, but freedom from that, at least.”
“I already said I’m not holding you to that debt.”
“I know. But—will you consider it?” His wings shifted restlessly. “I must go. I will see you tonight?” He remembered to make it a question rather than a command right at the end of the sentence. And then he was gone.
ROYAL LOVERS’ TIFF? was the headline of the morning’s gossip sheet. No one was sure who wrote them—Rose thought it was enterprising pixies with a handpress. Lord Bloodthorn made a point to magically set the papers on fire whenever he saw them, but the ladies of the household had long learned how to disguise them to avoid this.
Acantha had her nose buried in the report—disguised as an improving work of history—when I came across her later that morning. She was muttering to herself.
“How are you, Cinders?” Lady Bloodthorn asked me with a smile. There was an unusual solicitousness in her manner, and I wondered if it was driven by guilt about disowning me in casual conversation last night.
Acantha flung the paper sideways in an abrupt display of disgust. I picked it up and began to grin. Apparently, I, or rather “the masked lady,” was Tawhiri’s old flame, come to show my displeasure at his planning to marry somebody else. I found myself reading over the mundane details of the rest of his evening. He had danced only once with each of the scions of the twelve houses and excused himself after that duty was discharged.
“Who was the lady?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“No one knows,” Acantha said. “Lowborn, clearly, behaving in such a way. Probably Tawhiri told her he was ashamed to see her and that’s why she left.”
“He didn’t look ashamed,” Rose murmured. Acantha scowled at her.
“Now, now, girls!” Lady Bloodthorn soothed. “It matters not. I’m sure we shan’t see her again. It was vulgar of her to come, of course, but I’m sure that’s all done with now.”
“Do you like him?” I asked Acantha later when Lady Bloodthorn was safely out of earshot.
She frowned. “Who?”
“The king.”
She shrugged. “He’s handsome, powerfully magical, and rules the Golden Wood. What’s not to like?”
“But if he weren’t? What if he were a, a humble carpenter or something? Would you still like him?”
Acantha laughed at me. “Oh, Cinders. Of course I’m not going to marry a carpenter.” Her eyes grew wicked, and she checked to make certain we were alone. “Even if I might dally with a handsome one. After I’m married, of course.”
I blushed.
WHEN THE PARTY left for Second Night, I retreated to my attic with mixed feelings. Another dress lay on my bed, silver this time, and a white mask decorated with tūī feathers. Tawhiri clearly had a theme he liked, and he was sticking to it.
My arrival was different on Second Night. Whispers sprang up immediately. People stared, envious and wondering, and I once again found a discordant thrill in their reaction. If only they knew I was human.
Tawhiri wore silver too, though tonight his mask was a mere suggestion. Heat flared in his eyes when he saw me, and his wings half-flared too. A harder heart than mine would have stirred—until I remembered the illusion. He was admiring a lady who didn’t exist. Admiring his own illusion, in fact, which presumably was tailored to his exact tastes and made the whole thing curiously narcissistic. My heart fell.
Why was I being so silly about this? Tawhiri might have asked me to marry him, but he’d been coolly practical about the reasons for it. It was politics and perversity, not romance.
Still, when he held out his hand, I felt oddly breathless. “I read in the paper that you allocated one dance to each potential bride. Very fair of you.”
His lips curved. “You were reading about me?”
“Doing my research.”
He inclined his head. “I have not yet danced with anyone else this evening.” He led me out onto the floor, the eyes of the room upon us.
“Aren’t you supposed to be wooing potential brides?”
“I am.”
I glanced away from the intensity of his gaze. “What if I say no? Shouldn’t you know what your options are?” I still couldn’t truly believe he was serious about this.
“Do you think the houses have failed to push each and every eligible woman and man upon me since I attained my majority? I assure you: I have heard the details of their virtues at length. A dance with any of them will not change the balance of my opinion.”
That stunned me into silence for a whole round of the ballroom.
“I have some questions,” I said when I found my voice again.
“I thought you might.” The music came to a halt, and he gave a wry smile and said, “Will you come outside with me?”
When I nodded, I wasn’t expecting him to pull me into his chest. Or for the snap of his wings unfurling and the rush of wind as we took off. Outraged cries sounded below.
“It’s my party; I can fly if I want to,” he said mildly, and I laughed.
He flew us over the palace, and we landed atop a tower that was like a great tree trunk transformed to stone, its crown of leaves forming crenellations. There was a picnic feast laid out and cushions piled about. The night was clear and cool.
